Thousands of transportation enthusiasts attended TRB 2013

Ben and I attended the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference in Washington DC last week.  If you’ve been there you know it is a madhouse of nearly 10,000 traffic and transportation nuts running around from session to session and in between visiting vendor booths to see the latest in industry technological advances.

The MS2 booth at TRB

Our booth was positioned right next to the most intriguing display of the show – Mandli’s enormous monster data collection Hummer all tricked out with various sensors, laser scanners, computers and video screens.  The traffic Mandli generated helped us show our transportation database system to prospective new clients, so that was a bonus for MS2.

We had a great show, met numerous current clients and enjoyed the atmosphere.  We’ll be back again next year.  Look for us (we’ll be next to Mandli again!) if you attend in 2014.

Here’s a very short video describing MS2′s cloud-based travel time database system.

Users can quickly and easily define and edit study corridors including the desired segmentation for any time period within an agency’s network that has existing travel time data. The system provides the following for each corridor:

• Corridor description and general attributes (speed limit, traffic volume, etc.)
• Corridor control/segmentation points (e.g. intersections)
• Calculated travel time statistics
• Speed profiles and travel time-space trajectories
• Operation and environmental statistics
• Dynamic GIS layers displayed on the Google Maps component illustrating a number of statistics including Average Speed, Travel Time Index (TTI), and Stop Delay

Call Ben or Lev at 734.995.0200 if your agency needs a dynamic analytical tool to manage vehicle travel time data.

This living-organism-assisted “bioconcrete” could transform the way cities are built, according to The Delft University of Technology’s Centre for Materials.  The main benefit is a huge reduction in maintenance costs, along with the aesthetics and safety aspects of surfaces that are always in good condition.

Bioconcrete includes a paste of tiny organisms called Bacillus that produce calcite. That hard mineral then fills the little cracks that would otherwise let water into the concrete and ultimately produce cracking and rusting of reinforcement.  

However, all of God’s Bacillus have got to eat and that has been the trick:  providing food for the Bacillus.  This is done with tiny capsules of  calcium lactate (from milk) as part of the mix.

East Quad, University of Michigan

Excuse us for boasting! 

We couldn’t be more proud of the relationship we have developed over the years providing civil engineering services to the University of Michigan.  It’s long-term professional relationships like these that distinguish MCLLC from other civil engineering firms in southeast Michigan.

The University recently announced over $1 billion of current and future construction projects on their Ann Arbor campus.  News reports specifically mentioned nine major current or proposed projects; on five of these MCLLC provided either site development civil engineering or 3-D laser scanning services.  We did topographic surveying near the new entrance to Crisler Arena; we provided extensive site civil engineering services at the Institute for Social Research and at the GG Brown Memorial Laboratory.  We also provided topographic land survey services for the renovation project at the Wall Street parking garage.

Our services were provided either directly to the University Architect’s office or the Office of Architecture Engineering and Construction or indirectly through the University’s lead architectural firms.  In each case our work has been done promptly and on budget. 

Providing reliable, accurate civil engineering and site surveying services is the foundation of our business.  Long-term relationships with important, high visibility clients like the University of Michigan are a result of those efforts.

Saline River at Mill Pond Park

In late April, City of Saline, Michigan dignitaries re-dedicated a newly built bridge over the Saline River in the city’s Mill Pond Park.  The Bowley Bridge and surrounding river bank had been damaged during a recent flood.  Midwestern Consulting was asked to provide design and construction project  management for new plantings, soil erosion control and a new steel structure. The re-dedication ceremony celebrated the opening of the new bridge and its heritage.

Midwestern Consulting was the lead consulting engineer for the bridge replacement and bank stabilization project.  The project consisted of removal of the original Bowley Bridge and replacement with ADA approach ramps as well as 100 feet of stream stabilization/restoration. The City provided the conceptual design and selected what materials to use.  Midwestern Consulting provided engineering design of the shoreline improvements and approach ramps. Highlights of the project include the use of Rosetta Stone block and Envirolok vegetated sandbags (both used along the stream banks) and creation of a flat, easy access area to the water’s edge for kids.

Photo courtesy of SalinePatch

The Economics of Place - buy at Amazon.com

New from the Michigan Municipal League:  The Economics of Place: The Value of Building Communities Around People

This is a collection of essays about planning the future of Michigan in general and Detroit in particular. Re-invention, re-vitalization, re-generation, re-population (maybe resurrection is more apt) is necessary to redefine our economy and redevelop our state. Creating a “sense of place” is at the core of this change and the authors readily illustrate that vibrant places will attract talent and bring economic growth.

Planetizen reviewed this book  and described it as an “arts-driven regeneration plan for Michigan like a modern day Magna Carta…”

This book may be more of a sourdough starter than a Magna Carta, but it is an important collection of thoughts.  But an “arts-driven” plan is too narrow in scope.  The early stages of the plan should focus on developing a mixture of land uses at a higher density that will create and support local jobs and services.

A chapter in the book written by Dr. Soji Adelaja and Mark Wyckoff, “Why the economics of ‘place’ matters” explains that “the term ‘sense of place’ is used to describe not so much physical geography or the attributes of that geography, but the emotional response one has to a special allure and warmth when at a location that has unique and attractive amenities.”  This article is about the role of “place” as it relates to economic development. Particularly interesting is a chart comparing the old and new economy with respect to place, and tables of examples of “place-based strategies to attract certain target populations and businesses.

In Detroit, where it’s so bad that it’s good, is an extreme example of a city in distress that is struggling in the early stages of regeneration. If you do not accept the notion that plowing Detroit under is the best alternative, redevelopment strategy should include rebuilding the population with new jobs, housing, infrastructure and amenities.

When a city’s population, economy and government is as seriously degraded as it is in Detroit or Flint, a key question is what comes back first, residents or retail? Simultaneous development of housing and services may provide the framework for sustainable re-development.  In Dan Gilbert’s ‘Big Bang Theory’ for Detroit, both have to come on line at the same time.  (See the video: Dan Gilbert’s vision for downtown Detroit retail from Crain’s Detroit Business).

Governor Snyder said recently that Detroit can and should return as a manufacturing based economy that opens its arms to immigrants.  That can be part of the vision that includes elements of a technology or knowledge based economy, and one that is partially “arts-driven” as suggested in “The Economics of Place”.

Soil is a key element of our ecosystem

Matt Power, Editor-In-Chief of Green Builder Magazinewrites in the March 2012 issue about how typical construction practices destroy soil ecosystems during development of new buildings.  Stripping and mass grading, “attack(ing) a piece of land the way a three-year-old goes after a lump of Play-Doh”, typically divides the soil into one pile for topsoil, one pile for subsoil and one pile for sand.  “Abused, misunderstood, poisoned and taken for granted, soils deserve better. They’re essential to life, more complex than you can imagine, and in serious need of stewardship”, Power writes.  And soil ecosystems are very difficult to restore.

Power summarizes soil expert Mark Fulford’s message that “modern society- agriculture in particular- has gone astray.”  Industrial agriculture following WW II is based on mining rather than biology, with the result that crops are “grown in a chemical soup” instead of in soils. 

Typical construction site management reflects the same attitude toward the soil.  Rip it up, pile it up, spread it out, compact it, re-spread soils and top it with turf treated with petroleum based nitrogen. Fulford calls that “carpeting a collapsed ecosystem.” His point is that there is no way to effectively restore the soils that natural processes produce in human terms at an extremely slow rate, at the rate of up to one inch per one thousand years. There is also no way to restore the amount of air in the soil that the roots need to thrive.   

The best way to protect soil ecosystems is to disturb them as little as possible.  A few key points taken from “Sustainable Landscape Construction” by J. William Thompson and Kim Sorvig with a few added comments include:

• Preserve and protect every tree (not usually feasible, so minimize removals)
• Use moveable, pervious pavers (or permeable paving)
• Minimize utility access damage (and think about what kind of backfill material makes sense)
• Plan staging carefully (minimize the limits of disturbance)
• Listen to the weeds.  This refers to “Weeds and Why They Grow”, a classic 116 page guide by Jay McCaman published in 1994.  By reading that, you get a free and quite accurate picture of the real qualities of the soil on a particular site. The idea is that observing which weeds grow where is a highly efficient way of identifying what the soils are lacking.

If soils have to be disturbed, the goals of restoration should include increasing carbon and air content.  Fulford says that increasing soil organic carbon can “sequester enough carbon to get us back to the pre-industrial level…”

Our understanding of soil ecology has evolved but our typical construction practices have not.

Community Colleges:                           Internet Link:

The Michigan State Bidget Office today unveiled a new plan to allow the public to access community college and university annual 5-year plans and capital outlay priority requests.  Architects, engineers and contractors seek these plans of proposed future projects and follow their development.

In past years, each publicly funded Michigan community college and university had to send hard copies of these plans to the Budget Office.  There the plans would be categorized and sent to the legislature for possible funding.  Then the plans would be boxed and stacked and kept on hand.  Now the state has changed the rules and requires that each college and university post their plans on a publicly accessible website.

We thought you’d like to see that list so here is as of February 1, 2012.  Listed below are the links to the state Universities.  Please go to the following post to see the community college links. 

Please note that if the links are broken or otherwise do not resolve, the problem is with the college or university, not the State Budget Office.  Where it says “hardcopy submitted” we guess that institution of higher education didn’t read the directions.

FY 2013 FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL OUTLAY PLANS

Five-year capital outlay plans are required annually from universities and community colleges per the Management and Budget Act, Public Act 431 of 1984, Section 242, as amended.    The FY 2013 plans cover the planning period of FY 2013 – FY 2017.   Per State Budget Office instructions issued on September 1, 2011, institutions may now post their Five-Year capital outlay plans in a searchable electronic format on a publicly viewable location on their internet site.   Institutions are to archive these plans on the site for a period of no less than three years.   The link to the applicable internet site was provided to the State Budget Office by the institution and any technical questions regarding the link should be directed to the institution.

Universities:                                         Internet Link:

Community Colleges:                           Internet Link:

Some zoning ordinances are subject to the rule of unintended consequences. The intent is often not codified in a way that anticipates every possible application of the ordinance requirements. An example is the Ann Arbor Off-street Parking ordinance intended to prevent parking between commercial buildings and adjacent rights-of-way. 

Our client owns a shopping center in a C3/Commercial zoning district with frontage on three public streets. A remodeling project is proposed to construct entries on a blank face of the center and add parking between the building and the street.

City planning staff opposed parking in this location because the “intent” of Chapter 59 is to require buildings to be located close to front property lines with parking in side or rear yards. We argued that the “content” of the ordinance is the controlling factor and that the ordinance includes an exception for sites with multiple frontages.  We submitted a Zoning Compliance Permit Application.

Chapter 59, Section 5:168, item (2) c, describes an exception to the prohibition of parking between the building and the street. “Sites with more than 1 front line; the requirements of paragraph (1) in this section shall apply to only 1 front lot line. For all other lot lines abutting streets, parking shall be located behind the minimum front setback requirement, per Chapter 55 (Zoning).”

That paragraph reads “Vehicular parking structures, lots and space shall not be located in the front open space. No space within a parking structure or lot may be closer to the street than the front face of a building.”

1. The site has frontage on three public streets.

Item (2) c applies and requires that only 1 of the frontage cannot have parking between the building and the street.

The preliminary site concept showed proposed improvements including removal of all parking spaces between the building and one of the other two frontages, one that is functionally a rear yard.  Removing that parking makes that frontage comply with paragraph (1). The front line adjacent to proposed parking no longer has to meet that requirement.

1. The other two front lines are not subject to paragraph (1) and are subject to the requirement that “parking shall be located behind the minimum front setback requirement” which is 10 feet.

The Zoning Compliance Application was approved. The City immediately began the process of changing Chapter 59 to revise the ordinance to require a minimum 25 foot setback rather than the 10 minimum permitted in the C3 district.

We submitted a Site Plan that showed a minimum 25 foot parking setback and that was unanimously approved.